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Carte Blanche

007 : the New James Bond Novel
Jul 08, 2013JimLoter rated this title 1 out of 5 stars
In this disappointing "reboot" of James Bond, Jeffery Deaver takes a literary scalpel and piece-by-piece surgically removes everything that makes Bond a compelling (though highly problematic) character. The opening chapters focus on inter-agency politics and force Bond into an antagonistic position vis-a-vis a fellow British agent - albeit someone from the domestic branch of the secret service. Granted, Bond has always been a bit of a loner, but that was due to the nature of his role and position as a double-0 agent, not because of ego, petty in-fighting, or jurisdictional disputes. This attempt to introduce a bureaucratic conflict with Percy Osborne-Smith places Bond in situation where he can very nearly be said to engage in obstruction or even treason. A focus on the internal struggles of the intelligence community works well for Le Carre or for something like "The Sandbaggers" but it has no place in the Bond mythos. Furthermore, Bond is practically neutered with regard to his relationships with women. He voluntarily foregoes an evening with a newly-single co-worker because he deems her "not yet ready," then he pines for her throughout most of the rest of the book. When he finally does hook up in somewhat more of a Bond-like fashion with a beautiful South African philanthropist, he almost immediately falls in love and goes all moony over her, imagining a future and worrying about how he can ever tell her who he really is. Granted, these are all fine characteristics and behaviors of a upstanding and noble man - just not of James Bond. The story itself is also a bit of a mess. The primary antagonist and his henchman are both somewhat compelling and seem to be worthy adversaries, even if their master plot ends up being lame and anti-climatic. In an attempt to raise some suspense early on, Bond intercepts some intelligence that leads him to believe there will be an attack leading to several dozen causalities. But Deaver's clumsy handling of the build-up blatantly telegraphs the fact that the plot is not what it seems and it ends up making Bond look foolish for misreading such obvious clues. Sure, Bond is not infallible, but neither should his face be so covered in egg as to look ridiculous. This is, quite simply, not a Bond story.